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Ads that target AI agents rather than humans might sound like something ripped from the pages of sci-fi, but it’s a concept that’s gaining traction among marketers thanks to recent musings by Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. On the “Marketing Against The Grain” podcast, he painted a picture of a future where “user never sees an ad. Unlike Google, the different merchants are not competing for users’ attention. They’re competing for the AI agents’ attention”.
Naturally, Srinivas’ comments have unleashed a torrent of hot takes. Somewhere in the swirl of opinions, a few recurring arguments emerge — both for and against this seemingly far-fetched, yet not entirely implausible, vision.
Cases for ads served to AI agents
It provides a cleaner user experience
People are over the endless deluge of ads — especially the ones that miss the mark entirety. But if AI agents became the new target for advertisers, the constant stream of ads could disappear from view altogether. The result? A cleaner, ad-free user experience, letting consumers enjoy the web and their platforms without the usual interruptions.
Speaking of user experience, AI agents can create efficiencies for people
By giving AI agents any manual or menial jobs, it frees up individuals to focus on more sophisticated tasks.
“If you’re a consumer, it could book travel, transportation, a reservation or purchase something, for example,” said Rohith Kolluri, co-founder of software development company Stealth, which is currently building an AI agent for D2C growth marketing teams. “Anywhere a consumer would have to click on a link, type out a bunch of information, and do a bunch of manual steps, the AI agent could take those actions for them. And as that AI gets to know them better, it can interact with the ads itself and make the decisions for them.”
AI agents can also create efficiency for B2B operations
Given Kolluri is already in the early stages of building an AI agent for D2C growth marketing teams, he knows all too well how this can improve team performance and abilities.
“We’re building it to help them with the full creative analysis and testing and optimization workflow they need to grow their businesses,” Kolluri said. “It’s effectively like adding a junior employee that works 24/7 on this workflow to all of the teams. They get a ton more leverage and can do a ton more stuff.”
Cases against ads being served to AI agents
Advertisers will need to change from targeting humans to targeting AI agents
For years, marketers have griped about burning cash targeting bots instead of real people. Ironically, that might soon be the goal. In the future, Srinivas predicts, rather than coaxing masses of consumers to buy their products, advertisers may need to charm AI agents to get their products in front of any user at all. It’s the ultimate plot twist: brands striving to impress the very algorithms they once cursed.
“If advertisers can’t, or it doesn’t work out, they won’t pay to advertise on those systems because they have to get a return to justify advertising those systems,” said Kolluri. “These companies need to figure out how to create a great user experience, while advertisers still make a return.”
Advertisers will likely need to focus on getting reach from other platforms
Since advertisers will be targeting AI agents, they will no longer be targeting mass consumers on these platforms, effectively removing top of the funnel completely.
“Platforms with AI agents are going to capture people that are searching for things that they already want,” said Kolluri. “They [advertisers] will probably have to use different demand generation channels, such as Meta ads for example, if they want to grow their brand awareness rather than trying to get reach from these platforms.
Consumers are unlikely to adopt this new behaviour anytime soon
What makes sense to the tech world generally requires the rest of the world to catch up. Think of the metaverse — while Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been enthusiastic about it being the future, when adoption didn’t follow as quick as the company has hoped, they’ve flipped the narrative to suggest this is much more of a longer-term project when thinking about adoption.
“I think we’re a long way from the point where enough people are comfortable allowing an AI agent to spend money on their behalf and take control of the decision making,” said one marketing exec at a global bank.
It’s a view shared by Tom Limongello, co-founder of Nextipedia. “Unless I’m training multiple agents, and I know which ones are doing what, I’m still going to want to see those ads,” he said. “The machine [AI agent] isn’t going to be persuaded. It’s just going to try to break down what’s there and characterize that into terms.”
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